


just want your arms wrapped around me (and this moment)

by TheJGatsby



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff, Introspection, M/M, in canon, really just cullen being melodramatic and anxious stream of consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 15:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9767399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJGatsby/pseuds/TheJGatsby
Summary: Cullen worries about what happens after the war is over.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not the first thing I started writing for Cullrian, but the first thing I've finished!  
> (The shitty enjambment of the title bothers me too, don't worry)  
> Inspired by this comic  
> Title from Eavesdrop by the Civil Wars

“What happens after?” Dorian asks, softly.

His voice is soft, but so is everything- the night, settled coolly into that hushed space just before dawn starts to consider appearing, his hand on Cullen’s bare chest, his hair between Cullen’s fingers, the carefully unnamed feeling wrapped around them, the way Dorian looks up at him through his lashes, the way Cullen’s breath leaves him and his heart pauses, quietly, as if to petrify the moment, perfection in amber, an imprint of comfort, of contentment, of-

“After what?” he says, pointlessly, knowing exactly what Dorian means. It’s hard, sometimes, to think there’s ever going to be an after- harder sometimes than remembering there was ever a before, that at one time there was something other than war and perhaps in time there will be again. At times it feels as if Cullen was born with a sword in his hand, as if perhaps everything before the familiar rhythms of battle was a dream, or a story he’d heard- once upon a time there was a boy in a village and he wanted to do the right thing or what he thought was the right thing or what he was told was the right thing and he didn’t know how many people he would hurt along the way, and-

“I imagine you’ll find another crusade to join, Commander,” Dorian says, teasing, bringing Cullen back from his thoughts and at one time he might have bristled at the remark, but he knows better now, knows that behind it lies admiration, adoration, something wistful-  _ I wish I had your perseverance _ , Dorian had told him once.  _ I would have given up the first time heroism and devotion blew up in my face, but you just take up a new banner and a new creed and keep trying to save the world no matter how much it wants to stop you _ .

“I might,” he says, as if either of them could imagine a world where he isn’t taking up arms for whoever’s the closest to justice. He envies Dorian, sometimes, the fact that he has a whole world of skills and aptitudes that can keep him from ever having to see a battlefield after this. “And you? Will you go back to Tevinter?”

“Someone has to tell the magisters what’s what, don’t they?” he replies, breezily, as if fixing the deep-rooted issues of his homeland were as easy as planning a dinner party.

Cullen has to laugh, and then he has to pull Dorian up for a kiss, and then he has to keep going, and by the time they’re settled together again, less soft this time, breathing heavily, foreheads pressed together, bodies curled away from each other like brackets hiding the secrets neither will put voice to, he can almost forget what they were talking about.

“Sometimes I never want this war to end,” Dorian says, and it’s so quiet Cullen would almost believe it was just the sound of his own thoughts, except his thoughts aren’t usually in his lover’s voice.

And Cullen understands, he does- it’s easy to fall into things like this, when everything is falling apart around you. It’s easy to hold on tight to someone when you could lose them any day. It’s harder to face the reality of what comes when all is right again, when you have to open your eyes and breathe, when there’s time to feel things in moderation rather than with the intensity that comes along with impending doom. It’s harder when there’s time, when there’s space, when fear ebbs away and doubt can replace it, when all the facts of life that were cast aside during desperate times become important again.

“But it will,” Cullen says, despite himself, because he’s a pragmatist, because he plans and he strategizes and he thinks ahead, and he’s already seen all the ways this will end, and in his better moments he likes to think he’ll handle it well, when it does. In his worse moments it feels like the end of the world will come either way- either Corypheus defeats them, or he has to say goodbye to Dorian forever. In his worst moments, he thinks he would prefer the former.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Dorian says, pressing a kiss to Cullen’s lips. “Nothing is ending tomorrow. We have time.”

Cullen hums in agreement, eyes closed, but his mind is still working, treading the familiar paths of every possible ending- losing the war, winning the war, losing Dorian after the war, losing Dorian before the war even ends-

“I’m serious,  _ amatus _ , you’re making  _ me _ worry now, you’re going to give me wrinkles, and then where would we be?”

Cullen opens his eyes and looks at Dorian, ready to make a quip about the wrinkles he already has, but the first soft sigh of dawn has cast its rosy light over his skin just so, and Cullen’s heart stutters, and the joke dies on his lips, along with every anxiety about the future.

It doesn’t matter, he realizes, because all the worrying in the world won’t change the course of things, and right here, right now, Dorian is in his arms, warm and content and surpassingly lovely, and he loves him with a fierceness that takes his breath away, and he commits the moment to his memory, knowing that no matter what happens he’ll always have this, now, here.

“I love you,” Cullen says, softly. It’s not the first time he’s said it, but it’s rare, and the look that comes into Dorian’s eyes fills him as always with a thrill of adoration, of something bright and warm and protective, the desire to hold onto this beautiful man and this beautiful moment till his soul fades.

He may not love Dorian forever, he may not even have the chance, but he loves him now, and he will always have loved him now, and yesterday, and for every perfect day they’ve had together, and that is, in its way, enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr!


End file.
